Flight 93 pushed the envelope; This New "Twin Tower" movie is taking it too far!

Ok. I was pretty vocal among my friends when Flight 93 came out; I intended to write a post about it, but finals got in the way. It is way too soon for Hollywood to be attempting to make money on a national tragedy. I would have been more concerned, but Flight 93 came and went so quickly in headlines and conversations that I almost forgot it existed. That is until my unexpected viewing of the trailer of the next theatrical attempt at capitalizing on 9/11.

My wife and I were at the movies, and the very first trailer to play was "Twin Towers". It basically runs like this:

Dramatic Music Starts playing.

Cops getting to work in the morning.

Cops seeing on TV that a plane hits the World Trade Center.

Cops driving to the scene.

Some cops to scared to go in, they take volunteers and a few step up.

Dramatic Music intensifies.

The Tower starts to fall down.

Cops trapped inside.

3 or 4 Shots of women crying while watching the Towers fall on TV.

Are you freakin kidding me!! Do we need to be reminded of all of the women that had to watch as the buildings their husbands worked in toppled to the ground? What sort of cheap stunt is that? Didn't it ever occur that maybe some 9/11 widow might go to watch a movie and have to sit there watching a dramatization of what they went through? I felt sick after seeing that.

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Here's a Change: A Mormon in the News Who Isn't Mitt Romney

I don't know why, but this sort of thing really gets me excited. Maybe it's because I'm a "diversity for diversity's sake" kind of guy; or, maybe it's just that finally we'll get some good music at church (sorry dan).

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Stuck...with my agency

Agency is a great thing. It really is. Now don't take me too seriously, but there are some days when I wonder ( only slightly) if the growth that comes from struggling and making our own decisions is really worth it. Life would be so much easier if someone else made life's big decisions for us.

I suffer from abulia, that is the inability to make decisions. It stems, partly from a lack of knowing what I want, but moreso from struggling to know if what I want is in line with what God wants for me. More than anything I want to do what God wants me to do and a lot of the time I have a VERY difficult time knowing what that is.

I chose a major in college out of shear desperation. I wanted to go to Medical School and become a doctor. But I didn't feel that was what God wanted. I honestly don't know that doing a major in Japanese was what He wanted me to do either, but I was running out of time and needed to graduate.

My poor husband knows this firsthand. And he can't say he didn't know this about me beforehand because I wrote him while he was on the mission and for about a year I would send a letter that said I had decided to go on a mission. Then the next would say, no I'm not going on a mission, then the next I was going on a mission, etc....

I know that Agency is one of the greatest gifts we are given. But sometimes doesn't it feel like we really don't have any agency if we want to be obedient and eventually return to our Heavenly Father? In talking with my husband I have come to think that part of our greatest struggle here on earth is to give up that personal agency to God, and like our Savior say " not my will, but thine."

Elder Maxwell used to talk about this all the time. I always remember him saying that our agency or our will is the only thing we have to offer Heavenly Father because he blesses us so much there is no way we can ever repay him except through our agency.

For the first time in my life there are some things that I KNOW I want to do, and yet the answer from Heaven is no, or not yet. Part of me wants to be defiant and do what I want to do, but I know that later I will regret it. I do want to give my will to the Lord because I know that he can do more with it and with me, than I can. But I had no idea the process would be so painful and hard. Has anyone else experienced this or thought about this? It is definitely something to think about......

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God be with you. . . if you agree with me

Since we are already talking about God's political preferences, this is what I think about it. I think that maybe we would all be better off if politicians were not allowed to invoke the almighty at all. I am all for good god fearing people holding office, and I think that it is okay for someone's religious beliefs to influence their political ideas (and even their actions once they are in office), but it is dangerous to say that God endorses any political agenda. Here are a few reasons why:

1. when someone thinks that they are doing God's work there is a tendancy to be unwilling to compromise, which is a great quality when standing by your beliefs in your personal life (aka thou shall not steal, etc.) but in politics you have so many competing interests that compromise is almost always necessary, and usually not a bad thing. I've heard a lot of people that think one of the reasons that the Nush administration feel so comfortable doing whatever they feel like is the president's strong belief that he is doing what God wants (whether or not you like Bush, I think most people would agree that at least a little more compromise/discussion would be a good thing).

2. The last time I checked, there was only one guy who was authorized to recieve revelation for the whole world. Maybe you could argue that political leaders have some kind of stewardship, but given the important-but-secular nature of their position I think this might be a tough case to make.

3. Political leaders have to solve lots of problems that seem to me to be mostly organizational, taxing/spending plans, voting districts, etc. a lot of these areas seem to fall under the choosing between two good things umbrella that God may or may not feel strongly either way. If we raise tax on beef to get more funds for highways, it helps the drivers and hurts the BBQers, who does God want to bear the spending burden. Stuff like that.

4. Political leaders are elected to serve all of the people who live within their jurisdiction, not just the christians, or the moslums, or the atheists. Lots of those people don't care if the God that the mayor believes in wants him to do something, they want him to try to do what is best for everyone and listen to his constitutients. It seems kind of insensitive to assume that just because you think that God is one way everyone else does too.

I guess it might even lead to a discussion of how far the establishment clause should go, God has always had a role in American politics, but when does that help us and when does that hurt us? A while ago a friend said to me that while, as Latter Day Saints we are all for prayer and worship, shouldn't we also be the ones that really want a seperation of church and state after a lot of the things that have gone on historically between the LDS church and the government? Just a starting point, your thoughts?

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Thoughts on Political Rhetoric: Can't We All Just Be Americans?

Ok, I admit that my blog posts sometimes devolve into a griping session where what I write is no so much intended to generate discussion, but instead meant to serve as a platform for me to pat myself on the back about how well I can complain about another meaningless subject. I'll try and do better. But before I change my whining ways, I have one more thing to complain about:"the American people..."

Today, in President Bush's press conference, he said the following: "After September the 11th, I vowed to the American people that our government would do everything within the law to protect them against another terrorist attack." This is not a new way to refer to constituents, politicians on both sides use it all the time: "The American People don't want this...." or "The American People clearly believe...." This may seem petty, but can't they just call us what we are: AMERICANS? I wonder if it is some false attempt at creating unity, or maybe this is just how politicians see us. Instead of the plural "americans", we are the singular "american people." Maybe it's easier when they can say that one organism thinks one way.

But still, why do politicians think they can speak FOR Americans (see how easy it is...)? Especially those who represent only a single state and/or district? I guess a lot depends on how you view the role of the elected (delegate v. representative, etc.), but shouldn't they be doing more listening to their "people" and less talking for them?

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Alcohol Ad Nauseum

A few nights ago, my wife and I sat in a movie theater in front of a gaggle of college freshmen. The movie hadn't started yet which meant that I had no reason to turn and glower at them, so I was stuck between the repeating series of nauseating pre-movie "fun facts" on the screen in front of me and the ridiculous frat-house chatter from the row behind me. Listining to this inane conversation, I realized something I've always vaguely thought, but never explicitly acknowledged: alcohol is THE ONLY THING that your average 18-23 year-old can talk about. In this case, the topics these guys hit were, successively: How do we get it? How much of it does it take to get each one drunk? (and the most interesting and/or successful topic) What each of them did while they were drunk?

I'm no teetotaler. Drink if you want! Drink as much as you want! It doesn't bother me!! But why, oh why, is it that college kids cannot talk about anything else? I have lots of friends in the 24+ age group who drink, and they seem to be about to converse about a wide range of subjects, and quite adeptly I might add. Admittedly, I'm a non-expert on drinking (and therefore I'm not an expert about talking about drinking), but I nevertheless have a few theories to explain this phenomenon: (1) drinking is the only thing that brings enjoyment/happiness/fun to their lives so that's the only thing they talk about; (2) drinking isn't that fun, but talking about drinking makes them feel like their lives are sexy and that their drunkenness is somehow adult; or (3) their minds are so empty that they have nothing else to talk about.

I'm not sure I buy any one of my theories. In any case, I'd be curious to see if anyone else has had experience with this. Am I wrong in my characterization (granting that it is exaggerated a little) that this group of human beings refuse to speak on any other subject? Assuming you agree (and why wouldn't you?) with my characterization, do you have any competing theories to explain this phenomenon?

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